INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. 
72 (> 
see the student in medicine, unrestrained by wise and wholesome 
regulations and neglecting his duties from season to season ; we 
shall see him wasting the most valuable hours of the best years 
of his life, spending his time in listless idleness, or squandering 
health and reputation in sensual gratifications. As a close to this 
demoralising course, the examinations are to be passed ; but he 
has neglected the studies which each season should have seen com- 
pleted ; he finds, too late, that a sound knowledge of the study of 
medicine is not the work of one year, or of two ; he discovers, to 
his remorse, that the first month of his studies, as the last, had 
its fair proportion of labour allotted; and, discontented with him- 
self, he wends his steps to the threshold of the grinder. Three 
weeks of questions and answers by rote are passed, and he slips 
through the drowsy examinations of the College and the Hall, 
licensed to practise. 
“ Fathers! is this the course of study that you could wish your 
sons to pursue ? Society ! is this the model of the practitioner 
to whose keeping you would entrust the health and lives of your 
families and yourselves, or the secrets of your private life ? We 
anticipate your reply ; we anticipate also your remark, that the 
sketcli which we have here briefly traced is the dark side of medical 
education ; we hear you say, Have not, and do not, young men 
distinguish themselves? They have, and will. They ever will. 
It is the generous nature of youth to emulate the good and great, 
to seek distinction and honourable fame. These have their re- 
ward. Let them be content. They will perceive that our friendly 
hint is not meant for them, but for those whom each among 
them knows. We wish them every success. Would that, by 
our means, their thoughtless companions could be made to think, 
and to turn, while there is yet time, from the path of obscurity 
to that of industry and perseverance. 
“ While the junior, the senior, and the public would recoil 
with horror before the prospect which neglected education un- 
folds, we will endeavour to anticipate their wishes, by inquiring 
briefly into some of the causes of the state of things which we 
have here depicted ; and the first of the causes which often 
prevails is one that originates in the teachers. The national 
freedom and spirit of private enterprise, which is the charac- 
teristic of our country, has multiplied this class of medical 
men very materially within the last few years ; and, since the 
recent regulations of the College of Surgeons, medical schools, 
with full lists of teachers, may be found in almost every large 
town throughout the country. The natural consequence of this 
increase has been, diminished profit to the whole ; and the worst 
paid men in our profession, at the present time, are unquestion- 
